World Series of Fighting 10 Preview and Predictions

World Series of Fighting returns to NBC Sports on Saturday with its 10th professional show. The card will be headlined by a middleweight title fight and supported by a women’s strawweight title bout and a featherweight title contest.

In the main attraction, Jesse Taylor and Dave Branch square off for the vacant 185-pound strap. This is the end of a four-man middleweight tournament that promised to crown the promotion’s first-ever middleweight champion.

In the co-featured bouts, Jessica Aguilar takes on Emi Fujino for the 115-pound strap and Georgi Karakhanyan fights Rick Glenn for the featherweight championship. Aguilar, who is the consensus top strawweight in the world, looks for her first title defense since winning the title over Alida Gray. Karakhanyan, meanwhile, has been the best 145er in the company with wins over Waylon Lowe and Lance Palmer under the WSOF banner.

Here’s an in-depth look at the championship fights on the card, with some quick picks for the rest of the bill.

MW Championship: Jesse Taylor (27-9) vs. Dave Branch (13-3)

The main event sees the end of the four-man middleweight tournament, as finalists Jesse Taylor and Dave Branch square off. The winner will walk out as the first WSOF middleweight champion in the company’s history.

Taylor is a UFC veteran. He is one of the most successful journeyman in the sport. He has literally fought everywhere, but has finally found a permanent home in the WSOF. The Team Quest product is a pure ground fighter known for using overwhelming wrestling and top control to dominate opponents. This strategy was evident in the semifinals, where Taylor won a lackluster decision over Elvis Mutapcic in a wrestling-heavy affair.

Branch is also a UFC veteran. He is a disciple of Renzo Gracie. The ground specialist, known for his submission prowess, has found great success in the WSOF so far. After besting kickboxer Dustin Jacoby and Pride veteran Paulo Filho in his first two bouts with the company, he entered the four-man tournament opposite Danillo Villefort in the semifinals. There, he again won a decision to earn a title shot opposite his current foe.

Both men are ground fighters, which could make this interesting. However, Taylor is vastly better in the wrestling category, whereas Branch is more of a jiu-jitsu-based fighter. Taylor’s imposing strength and relentless aggression will earn him takedowns, and he will ride out Branch to a decision to become the first WSOF 185-pound champ.

FW Championship: Georgi Karakhanyan (23-3-1) vs. Rick Glenn (14-2-1)

Georgi Karakhanyan, one of the best featherweights outside the UFC, returns to the WSOF to defend his featherweight belt. In his way of a continued title reign stands Rick Glenn, a top prospect who is looking to add some gold to his trophy case.

Karakhanyan, joins Pat Curran and Patricio Freire as a top-three featherweight outside the UFC. He is a good boxer, but he is really known for his submission skills. That combination of stand-up and grappling makes Karakhanyan a very well-rounded fighter. His WSOF premiere saw him best UFC vet Waylon Lowe. That win was enough to thrust Karakhanyan into a bout for the vacant 145-pound title, which he claimed with a win, via guillotine choke, over power wrestler Lance Palmer.

Glenn is a Roufusport rep, which is obvious from his top-notch kickboxing skills and underrated grappling. He is one of the best young featherweights in the world. He’s also physically imposing at 6-foot-tall and possesses a long, lanky reach. His WSOF career has seen him go 2-0, knocking out Alexandre Pimentel before winning an exciting decision over Artur Rofi. His best chance to off the Armenian-American is on the feet.

Karakhanyan has consistently fought higher-level guys than Glenn with great success. Glenn doesn’t present anything that Karakhanyan hasn’t seen before. Plus, Glenn didn’t exactly dominate his fight against Rofi, who made the bout extremely close despite not being near the same talent level as Karakhanyan.

The champ will retain his belt, either by late stoppage or decision.

WSW Championship: Jessica Aguilar (17-4) vs. Emi Fujino (13-7)

A pair of longtime female fighters are on a collision course. The WSOF strawweight champion, Jessica Aguilar, looks to defend her title for the first time when she goes up against Japan’s Emi Fujino. This match-up pits The MMA Corner’s top-ranked strawweight in the world against the 15th-ranked Fujino.

Aguilar has fought a who’s-who of ladies with great success. Just look at her resume—she owns wins over Megumi Fujii (twice), Carla Esparza and Lisa Ellis, among others. She is a great ground fighter and has made a career of beating ladies at their own games. Aguilar won the belt in her latest outing when she submitted power puncher Alida Gray with an arm-triangle choke.

Fujino is a decade-long veteran of MMA who cut her teeth in Japan. She has fought a number of significant names in the sport, but the results have been mixed. Fujino, like Aguilar, is a grappler, though one has to believe that, given Aguilar’s track record, the champion has the better chops on the ground. Fujino will need to find an alternate route.

The American Top Team product has been on a roll. She has been beating top-10 opposition for a long time. Her strength matches up with Fujino’s strength, though she is likely better. On the feet, it’s probably closer, though again the champ has the advantage. This bout is meant as a means by which to continue to build up Aguilar.

About The Author

Riley Kontek is a Chicago-land native that has been an addict of mixed martial arts since the first Chuck Liddell-Tito Ortiz encounter. He has been writing on MMA for the last year and is a Featured Columnist for Bleacher Report MMA. In addition to that, he used to host a weekly radio show on MMA. Though he has no formal training in mixed martial arts, Riley is a master in the art of hockey fighting.